Solved: Campaign Results Affected by Weekly On/Off Schedule?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your situation. What you're describing is a really common issue when advertising services with limited availability, but the stop-start approach you're taking is probably doing more harm than good for your campaign's perfomance. It feels logical, but the way ad platforms work means you're fighting against the system.

The good news is there's a much better, more stable, and ultimately more effective way to set this up. It involves running the campaign continuously but controlling exactly when and to whom your ads are shown. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at... why your current strategie isn't working

Okay, the first and biggest issue we need to tackle is this cycle of activating and deactivating the campaign. On the surface, it makes perfect sense – why spend money when the doctor isn't there? But ad platforms like Google and Meta aren't like a simple light switch. They are complex learning machines, and you're essentially resetting them to zero every single week.

Every time you launch a new campaign, or re-activate a paused one, the platform's algorithm enters what's called the "learning phase." During this period, which can last for several days, the system is actively experimenting. It's trying to figure out the most important question: who is the right person to show this ad to?

It will show your ad to a wide variety of people within your targeting to see who clicks, who calls, and who converts. It's gathering data on demographics, interests, online behaviours, and a hundred other signals we don't even see. Based on this data, it starts to build a profile of your ideal patient. It learns that people who searched for X and visited website Y are more likely to book an appointment.

The problem is, you're pulling the plug right in the middle of this process. The campaign starts learning on Monday, maybe gets a little bit of data, and then on Tuesday, you switch it off. All that initial, expensive learning is basically thrown away. When you switch it back on the following week, it has to start the whole messy process again. This leads to a few very predictable and negative outcomes:

• Higher Costs: The learning phase is always the most expensive part of a campaign. The algorithm is inefficient by design because it's exploring. By staying in a permanent state of learning, you're paying premium prices for subpar results. You never get to the efficient, optimised phase where costs come down.
• Unstable Results: One day you might get a couple of cheap clicks, the next you'll get nothing. This is classic learning phase behaviour. You'll never achieve the predictable, steady flow of leads that a mature campaign can deliver because it's never allowed to mature.
• Poor Optimisation: The system never gathers enough data to make smart decisions. It can't tell which keywords are driving the best patients or which ad copy gets the most calls, because the sample size is always too small before you hit the off switch.

Think of it like a new employee. The first week is all about learning the ropes, making mistakes, and figuring things out. It's not very productive. It's only in the second, third, and fourth week that they start to become truly efficient and valuable. You're essentially firing your campaign every Tuesday and hiring a brand new, untrained one the following Monday.

To really show you what's happening, here's a simple flowchart that illustrates the two different approaches. Your current method is a broken loop, whereas the continuous approach creates a cycle of improvement.

I'd say you... should use Ad Scheduling instead

So, if turning the campaign off is the wrong move, how do you solve the very real problem of not wasting money when the doctor isn't avaialable? The answer is a standard feature in Google Ads called Ad Scheduling.

This is the proper tool for the job. It lets you keep the campaign technically 'active' 24/7, so the algorithm never gets reset, but you tell it to only show your ads on specific days and during specific hours. You get the best of both worlds: a continuously learning campaign and a budget that's only spent when you want it to be.

For your situation, the ideal setup would be to have the campaign running all the time in the background, but schedule the ads to only appear during the hospital's reception hours, or whenever someone is available to actually take a booking. This could be Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Even though the doctor is only in one day a week, people will be looking to book an appointment throughout the week. You want to capture that person on a Tuesday when they're actively searching, so you can book them in for the following week.

Setting this up is straightforward. Within your Google Ads campaign settings, you'll find the 'Ad schedule' section. Here you can add rules. For example:

• Monday: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
• Tuesday: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
• Wednesday: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
• Thursday: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
• Friday: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Outside of these times, your ads simply won't be shown to anyone, and you won't spend a penny. But critically, the campaign remains 'on', the data is retained, and the algorithm continues to refine its understanding of your audience in the background. When the clock hits 9am on Monday, your ads start showing again, but now they are smarter than they were the previous Friday. This is how you build a powerful, efficient campaign over time.

This also improves the experience for potential patients. There's nothing more frustrating than seeing an ad, clicking it, and then realising you can't actually complete the action you wanted to take. By only showing ads when someone can take the booking, you ensure a much smoother journey from search to appointment.

You probably should... shift your focus from the person to the problem

The next big area for improvement is your targeting. You mentioned you're advertising for "a weekly visit of a doctor". This suggests you might be focusing your ads on the doctor's name or the hospital itself. Unless this doctor is a well-known celebrity in their field, this is almost certainly the wrong approach.

People rarely search for a specific doctor's name unless they're an existing patient or have been referred. They search for a solution to their problem. They go to Google and type in their symptoms, their condition, or the type of specialist they need. This is what we call 'user intent', and it's the most powerful thing to focus on in your advertising.

You need to put yourself in the shoes of a potential patient. What are they worried about? What medical issue are they trying to solve? That's what you need to build your campaigns around. Your entire strategy should be based on capturing this high-intent traffic.

Let's say the doctor is a cardiologist. Here's a comparison of ineffective vs. effective keyword targeting:

Ineffective Targeting (focusing on the person):

• "Dr. Jane Smith"
• "[Hospital Name] visiting hours"
• "Doctor available on Wednesdays"

The number of people searching for these terms will be tiny. You're fishing in a puddle.

Effective Targeting (focusing on the problem):

• "cardiologist near me"
• "private heart specialist [City Name]"
• "chest pain consultation"
• "ECG test london"
• "best cardiologist for palpitations"

Now you're fishing in a lake. These are the terms real people are searching for when they are actively looking for the exact services your doctor provides. By targeting these keywords, you put your ad directly in front of someone at the precise moment they need help. This is the core strength of Google Search ads and why it's the perfect platform for most service-based businesses, especially in the medical field.

To do this properly, you need to do some keyword research. Think about all the different services the doctor offers, all the conditions they treat, and all the different ways someone might describe their problem. You'll want to build ad groups around tight themes of these keywords. For example, one ad group for 'General Cardiology', another for 'ECG & Testing', and a third for 'Chest Pain'. This allows you to write highly specific, relevant ads for each type of search, which will increase your click-through rates and lower your costs.

You'll need... to define a clear goal for your campaign

Once you have the right people seeing your ads at the right time, you need to be crystal clear about what you want them to do next. This is your 'conversion goal'. Without a clearly defined goal, you're flying blind. You can't measure success, and more importantly, the ad platform can't optimise your campaign to achieve it.

For a medical service, the goal is almost always to generate a qualified enquiry that leads to a booking. The most common and effective ways to do this with Google Ads are:

1. Phone Calls: Using 'Call Extensions', your phone number can appear directly in the ad. On mobile, this becomes a 'click-to-call' button. This is fantastic for capturing high-intent searchers who want to speak to someone immediately. If you can't take calls all day, this is another reason to use Ad Scheduling – you only enable the call extension when someone is there to answer the phone.
2. Lead Form Submissions: Your ad can direct users to a dedicated landing page on your website with a simple form to request an appointment or a callback. This page should be clean, professional, and focused on one thing only: getting the user to fill out the form. Remove all other distractions.
3. Online Booking: If the hospital has an online booking system, you can send traffic directly there. This is the most seamless option, but it requires a very user-friendly booking portal.

You need to pick ONE of these as your primary conversion goal. Then, you need to set up conversion tracking properly in your Google Ads account. This involves placing a small snippet of code on your website (or using Google Tag Manager) to tell Google whenever someone completes the desired action (e.g., submits the form, clicks the 'book now' button).

Once conversion tracking is set up, you unlock the true power of the platform. You can switch your campaign's bidding strategy to 'Maximise Conversions'. Now, you're no longer just paying for clicks; you're telling the algorithm, "Go find me more people like the ones who are actually booking appointments, and I'm willing to pay for that result." This aligns your goals with the algorithm's goals and is the key to long-term success.

So, what should you expect to pay for a lead in the service industry? It varies massively by niche and location. From our experience, costs can vary. We’ve run ads for childcare services where the cost per lead was around $10 per signup. On the other end, we're currently running a campaign for an HVAC company in a competitive area, and they're seeing costs of around $60 per lead. For a specialised medical service, you'll likely be somewhere in that range, perhaps £20-£50 per qualified enquiry. The key is that as long as the value of a new patient is significantly higher than that cost, the campaign is profitable and worth scaling.

Here is an interactive calculator to help you get a feel for the numbers and potential lead volume you could achieve with a properly structured campaign.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

To bring it all together, here is a summary of the strategic shift I'm recommending. Moving from the current approach to this new framework will fundamentally change your results, moving you from unpredictable spending to a reliable patient acquisition system.

I know this is a lot to take in, and it represents a big shift from what you're currently doing. The key takeaway is that to get the best results from modern ad platforms, you have to work with their algorithms, not against them. A continuous, data-driven, and properly scheduled campaign will always outperform a reactive, stop-start approach.

Implementing all of this correctly—from the keyword research and conversion tracking to writing compelling ad copy—can be a bit of a challenge. It's often where businesses find that getting some expert help can save them a lot of time, money, and frustration in the long run.

If you'd like to go over this in more detail and have us take a look at your specific setup, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can walk through your account and map out a precise action plan for you.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh